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'Changes are coming' with local school safety efforts

In the past few weeks, Leon County Schools officials have been struggling to field concerned calls about student safety and at the same time keep up with an increase in the number of threats to do violence on campus.

'Changes are coming' with local school safety efforts

Local students greet Douglas survivors as Leon High School opens its doors

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Leon County Sheriff Deputy Cecelia Crego works with staff in the front office at Astoria Park Elementary School where she is serving as the de-facto principal for the day, as the four administrators above her in that capacity were out on Friday, March 2, 2018. Asked if there are any roles she does not fill while on duty, Crego replied “No. I’ve helped clean up lunch before. I’m everywhere.”
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But they are wary, at least from a law enforcement standpoint, of laying out long-term options while the Florida Legislature debates a school safety program that could mean as much as $500 million to harden campuses statewide.

It’s a wait-and-see game with a Republican-controlled statehouse that refused to take up a bill that would ban assault rifles and is working through several plans, including one from Gov. Rick Scott, to address the aftermath of another school shooting.

“We can put forth options all day long but we’ve got to see what happens with some of the different legislation going forward,” said LCSO Lt. Grady Jordan. “Some of that is going to drive how we go forward with our options.”

Much like Scott, local officials say there is nothing that is out of the possibility when it comes to addressing school safety.

Proposals from Scott and both the House and Senate include increasing school safety funding and programs, changing the state’s gun laws and ushering more money toward addressing mental health.

Scott wants to put half a billion dollars toward mental health and school hardening efforts. House and Senate proposals include $400 million for the same things.

Scott is opposed to arming teachers. But he wants one deputized school resource officer in every school – at least one sheriff deputy per 1,000 students.

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Leon County Sheriff Deputy Cecelia Crego walks the halls as the school resource serving Astoria Park Elementary School on Friday, March 2, 2018. (Photo: Joe Rondone/Democrat)

All options on the table

LCSO and LCS are looking at several options. Many of them include updating and improving existing efforts to protect students.

After a series of meetings between Leon County Schools and Sheriff’s Office officials, the district pledged to keep “all options on the table” in crafting a new security plan in a time of heightened threats.

At Tuesday's school board meeting, LCS head of safety and security John Hunkiar said more than 40 training sessions have been conducted with staff detailing how to respond during an active shooter attack. There are nearly 3,000 cameras watching LCS campuses.

But for every angle the district has thought out to take preventative measures, there still are security weaknesses – several of which came up during the meeting.

Board member Maggie Lewis-Butler said one of her constituents, a substitute teacher, contacted her following the Parkland school shooting. Lewis-Butler said this person expressed concern that substitutes in the district are not given keys to lock their classrooms.

Carina Richardson, the board’s student representative and a senior at Rickards, said the classroom doors at her school do not lock from the inside.

Hunkiar took note and said both issues need to be looked at as the district continues to re-evaluate its procedures, announced in a joint press conference with LCSO the day after the Parkland shooting.

As head of security, Hunkiar is more keenly aware than most about what threats the district faces, and the frequency with which they surface. Since the Valentine's Day shooting, he has been hearing that concern echoed by more than a few parents.

“The calls and the emails and the communication I’ve had through the past two weeks, and I've been doing this 27 years, has opened my eyes,” Hunkiar said. “We are experiencing, nationwide, an epidemic in school threats. We experienced a rash of it in January and a rash of it this week.”

Hunkiar addressed the board just a week after Stoneman Douglas High students visited the Capitol to meet with legislators and rally for more stringent gun laws. The day of the rally, Feb. 21, three Leon County students were arrested for making threats online to their respective schools.

To date this school year, there have been four incidents of students bringing a weapon to school, each one was found out and addressed because of fellow students or others reporting them.

Superintendent Rocky Hanna acknowledged the uptick in threats, and said he believes additional deputies are needed in schools – the district currently contracts for 23 ½ . Yet, Hanna stressed he does not want to see the district “running kids through an airport-like system; it’s not practical.”

Manpower is limited. There are 14 sworn LCSO deputies working patrol during each of the four daily shifts. They are backed up by sergeants and lieutenants but that’s it.

Adding more deputies to the SRO force is not as simple as realigning shifts at the sheriff’s office.

“There’s 40 something schools in Leon County,” Jordan said. “If you wanted a deputy in every school plus two in every high school that’s a significant number of officers and to hire and train those officers is going to take some time.”

Starting cost to train, hire and put a new deputy on the force runs about $145,000 the first year. That includes salary, benefits, a vehicle, weapon and other equipment. SROs are paid in an off-duty capacity with the cost being split 50/50 between the sheriff’s office and the school district.

The expenditure costs both the school district and LCSO about $1.4 million annually.

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Leon County Sheriff Deputy Cecelia Crego interacts with students and teachers at Astoria Park, one of four schools that is a part of her patrol as a school resource officer, on Friday, March 2, 2018. (Photo: Joe Rondone/Democrat)

Long-term solutions

In Leon County, there are five public high schools, nine middle schools and 23 elementary schools.

SROs are on site at each middle and high school. Each day, eight deputies rotate throughout the campuses of the elementary schools.

The district and the sheriff’s office are looking at ways to put deputies in every school while also working behind the scenes to make immediate improvements.

LCSO is evaluating its school safety plan and working with teachers to give them more active shooter and critical incident training.

So far this year, faculty and staff at 36 of the district’s 42 schools have undergone active shooter training. Leon and Godby high schools, Deer Lake Middle School and Buck Lake Elementary staff had training the week after the Parkland shooting. All four were already scheduled.

LCSO increased mental health training within its ranks to better help deputies identify mental health issues and equip them to know how to get people the services they may need.

But SROs are being pushed to the front of the line so that if there is a student who is exhibiting troubling signs there can be an intervention before gunshots ring out.

“Our deputies ... and administrators are connecting with these kids and that’s where a lot of school safety is paramount,” Jordan said. “Knowing the kids who have needs and being able to get the kids into the needed programs that will help them in a situation before it starts.

“You want to be able to end a situation very quickly when it happens, but the ultimate goal is to prevent it from ever happening.”

The school district too has ideas bubbling behind the scenes. One idea Hunkiar suggested — a text alert system for dangerous situations similar to those operated by universities — received a favorable reaction from the board.

Hunkiar guessed that about 85 percent of LCS students have cell phones. During the school day, “100 percent of them are near another student with a cell phone.”

There is one thing Hanna adamantly opposes — arming district teachers.

“I’m not proposing we arm teachers,” Hanna said. “If you’re going to carry a weapon, in my opinion, you’re going to have a badge. You’re going to be an officer of the law.”

Hanna warned against over-spending and on “hardening” schools. He, Hunkiar and board members agreed that people and communication, rather than metal detectors and firepower, are needed to beef up school safety.

“We could spend hundreds of millions of dollars to harden schools,” Hanna said, adding that Stoneman Douglas was considered one of the “most hardened schools in the country” prior to the devastating shooting. “Is that going to make (threats) stop? I daresay, no.”

For her part, School Board member Rosanne Wood warned against turning schools into “armed encampments.”

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Leon County Sheriff Deputy Cecelia Crego shares a hug with a group of students at Astoria Park, one of four schools that is a part of her patrol as a school resource officer, on Friday, March 2, 2018.(Photo: Joe Rondone/Democrat)

Changes are coming

District officials along with the sheriff’s office are reviewing school safety plans and looking for gaps in the physical buildings.

Each school – based on geography, enrollment, capacity of each room, floor plans – has its own safety plan that is held by the district and onsite.

There is only so much officials can do. But they pledge they will do something.

To eliminate all risk would mean requiring kids to enter campus at the beginning of the day and have no interaction with the outside world for its duration. To do so would be to give up being able to come and go for things like doctor’s appointments and even to go off-campus for lunch, Hanna said.

The district is still talking through details with its law enforcement partners. But Hanna had a message for district parents and students who might be fearing for their safety:

“Changes are coming," he promised. "This not simply a bunch of rhetoric.”

Contact Karl Etters at ketters@tallahassee.com or on Twitter @KarlEtters. Ryan Dailey can be found on Twitter @RT_Dailey.